"You are too young to know Paris thoroughly yet. later on you will find out that there are what we call men with a passion ---

"...when folk of that kind get a notion into their heads, they cannot drop it. They must drink the water from some particular spring -- it is stagnant as often as not, but to get it they will sell their wives and families, they will sell their own souls to the devil. For some this spring is play, or the Stock Exchange, or music, or a collection of pictures or insects; for others it is some woman who can give them the dainties they like. You might offer these last all the women on earth -- they would turn up their noses, they will have the only one who can gratify their passion. It often happens that the woman does not care for them at all, and treats them cruelly. They buy their morsels of satisfaction very dear; but no matter, the fools are never tired of it. They will take their last blanket to the pawnbroker's to give their last five-franc piece to her."

Honorè de Balzac, Père Goriot